What makes Boris so irresistible to Women?

BORIS JOHNSON once declared it was unreasonable for men to remain faithful to one woman. The irony that he reportedly said this to his onetime mistress Petronella Wyatt is lost on nobody and it comes as little surprise that his roving eye has landed him in hot water again.

Claims of an affair with a blonde Tory aide have cost the former foreign secretary his marriage to barrister wife Marina Wheeler, who was yesterday allegedly preparing to serve divorce papers branding him an “adulterer”.

As Boris faces revelations about his relationship with former Tory communications director Carrie Symonds, including rumours of trysts in a hotel and restaurant, a former journalist colleague said the latest chapter in Boris’s complicated love life is true to type.

“This is following a fairly familiar pattern,” says the source.

“He is addicted to danger and addicted to women. It is part of his DNA, like breathing.”

Related articles

Claims of an affair with a blonde Tory aide have cost the former foreign secretary his marriage. (Image: GETTY)

Boris’s extra-marital affairs have been well documented.

He wed his first wife Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987 after they met at Oxford but split when he had an affair with Marina.

They married in 1993 but seven years later Boris, 54, embarked on a four-year affair with Petronella Wyatt, daughter of the late Labour grandee Lord Wyatt, while he was editor of The Spectator and she was his deputy.

Petronella fell pregnant and suffered a miscarriage, as she revealed in a book she wrote about their affair.

It became public knowledge when her mother revealed the details, including the damaging claim that Boris had promised to leave Marina for Petronella.

Marina threw him out in 2004, only for the couple to get back together some months later.

By then an MP for Henley, Boris was sacked as shadow arts minister for lying about the affair, which he had dismissed as “an inverted pryamid of piffle”.

It has been suggested that Boris’s liaison with Petronella overlapped with his next affair with Anna Fazackerley, a journalist on the Times Educational Supplement while he was a junior shadow education minister.

Related articles

In 2009 he began a romance with arts consultant Helen Macintyre and fathered a child with her.

His wife kicked him out again – only to take him back once more.

Full details of the affair emerged in court after Ms Macintyre lost a three-year legal battle to stop the press naming Boris as the father of their daughter Stephanie.

The Appeal Court heard in 2013 that Stephanie was alleged to be the second child conceived as a result of Boris’s extra-marital affairs.

Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds. (Image: GETTY)

Indeed friends of Marina said yesterday that she fears Boris may have had up to 10 affairs during their 25-year marriage – a fact which has left many women scratching their heads, asking: what is so appealing about Boris?

Relationship coach Jo Hemmings has the answer: “It’s simple and as old as the hills, a potent combination of power and money but with a lot of humour thrown in.”

Hemmings says that Boris is so disarming that women who don’t think they are attracted to him find themselves falling under his spell.

“He’s charming, bright and mischievous, just as long as you’re not looking for anything serious. In this latest alleged relationship it could be that Carrie has issued an ultimatum, as has been reported, and demanded that he divorce Marina. To be the one who tames the untameable playboy is a real coup but she can’t go into it with her eyes shut with his history and I suggest he’ll never change his ways.”

Related articles

One Westminster insider said Boris always has his eye on the next challenge, which is why he tires of people, jobs and roles easily: “I have travelled with him and he is always scanning the room for the next photo opportunity, for the next stunt he can perform which will grab the headlines.”

Amid claims that this latest revelation has alienated some Tory MPs, Daily Express political editor Macer Hall said that it may sit uncomfortably with women voters too: “We live in a less censorious age but some voters might think, if his own wife can’t trust him why should the country? Certainly the latest polling suggests that his popularity has been damaged.”

Several people who know Boris point to his Eton education as the root of his magnetism.

“He is charming, witty and intelligent and it is the Eton way to look effortlessly brilliant,” says one.

“In an era where there are not many interesting politicians, Boris stands out.

“He has that Old Etonian way of saying whatever he likes but in a way that very few people take offence,” says one former journalist colleague.

“Boris is very flattering and, against their better judgment, you can see women being bowled over by him, which partly explains his extraordinary success against all the odds.”

His first wife recalls that Boris the student pursued her relentlessly until she consented to a date: “I didn’t know of his reputation and to look at him you would never imagine he was a womaniser,” Ms Mostyn-Owen has said.

Anna Fazackerley. (Image: Karen Robinson)

“But I do recall that he became very persistent in his attentions. He relies entirely on his personality, especially his wit and that bumbling character that he’s developed and, well, it does seem to be still working, doesn’t it?”

Marina, 54, issued a statement last week saying that they remain friends and will support their four children: Lara, 25, Milo Arthur, 23, Cassia Peaches, 21, and Theodore Apollo, 19, but behind closed doors, she must be seething.

“It’s humiliating for a woman of Marina’s intellect and professional accomplishment to be constantly described as ‘long-suffering’,” says Jo Hemmings.

“She has been stoic for the sake of their children but this is an accumulative humiliation and she has clearly said ‘it’s enough now’.”

Related articles

Hemmings says that despite the selfish nature of infidelity, there is no shortage of women who want to help serial philanderers: “They think men like that need reining in and protecting from themselves. Perhaps this is what Marina believed in the beginning that she could help him – change his ways.”

Rumours of an alleged affair between Boris and Carrie surfaced in March when Marina is said to have become aware of texts between the pair.

Colleagues noticed Boris had eyes for the aide, 20 years his junior, when they attended the Tory annual Black and White fundraising ball in February and they were pictured giggling together as they left.

Six days later Boris took Carrie for a Valentine’s Day lunch at Rules restaurant in London’s Covent Garden, then in March – after going to extraordinary lengths to see one another – Boris turned up at her 30th birthday party, it’s reported.

Boris Johnson and Marina Wheeler have decided to end their 25 year marriage. (Image: GETTY)

While there has been no official comment on the nature of their relationship from Boris or Carrie, there are plenty of women – lovers past and present – who will be following these latest revelations with particular interest.

Says Hemmings: “The big question is, can Carrie be the one to hook Boris in and make him settle down for good? I wouldn’t bet on it but it’ll be fascinating to watch.”